17th Century Tokens : Jacob_Street-Kings_Bench in Southwark

Jacob Street

Possibly so called from Richard Jacob, vintner, who left to the prisoners in each of the three Southwark prisons, i.e., White Lion, King's Bench, and Marshalsea, £40 per annum, according to Stow.

In a private house in Jacob Street first met the Anabaptist congregation under the pastorate of Benjamin Keach, who afterwards moved to Goat Yard. While so? meeting the congregation was interrupted by the churchwardens and constables and carried off before the quarter sessions for unlawful worship.

W273: Southwark, Jacob Street (Uncertain): (Date Unknown)

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Three hats

IOHN BVRTON IN

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I I B

IACOBS STREET I I B

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W274: Southwark, Jacob Street (Uncertain): (Date Unknown)

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A bunch of grapes

THE BVNCH OF GRAPES

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W A C

IN IACOB STREETE W A C

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W276: Southwark, Jacob Street (Farthing): (1666)

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The Carpenters' Arms

THOMAS GESKINGE IN

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T E G conjoined

IACOB STREET 1666 T E G

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W277: Southwark, Jacob Street (Uncertain): (1657)

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R E L

RICHARD LEE 1657 R E L

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Two hands joined

IN IACOB STREET

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King's Bench

The King's Bench was on the east side of the Borough High Street, south of the Marshalsea. In the latter half of last century [18th] it was removed to the corner of Blackman Street and Borough Road. It eventually became the Queen's Bench, was abolished as a prison for debtors in 1860, and has since been destroyed.

W281: Southwark, King's Bench (Farthing): (Date Unknown)

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Three sugar-loaves

NEER THE BENCH

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R A O

IN SOVTHWARKE R A O

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A large business was done at the gaol tap of the King's Bench Prison, from which possibly Nos. 280 [a halfpenny], 282 were issued.

Five hundred butts of ale were drawn in one year at the common side. In an outbreak (1771) the prisoners, suspecting that the strong beer was unduly weakened, some fifty butts belonging to the tap were destroyed, i.e., by way of impressing the fact upon the authorities. The gaols were at that time, in deed and in name, [?]. --[R. and N., 54.]

In 1381 Stow tells us that the rebels under Wat Tyler "brake down the houses of the Marshalsea and King's Bench and tooke from thence the prisoners."

Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V., was committed on the memoral occasion by Sir William Gascoigne to this prison. Baxter was confined there for eighteen months for his notes on the New Testament, and Rush worth died there in 1690. It was set on fire in 1780 by the Rioters under Lord George Gordon and the prisoners liberated.